1 Giant Leap

1 Giant Leap | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 9, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Palm Pictures (Audio
• ASIN: B00005UMQ5
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,087 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The U.K.-based musician, film director, and Faithless cofounder Jamie Catto and producer Duncan Bridgeman coproduced this impressive multimedia CD, which boasts an eclectic array of artists ranging from Senegal's Baaba Maal and New Zealand's Maori artist Whirimako Black to the king of ambient, Brian Eno. This project, the fruit of a six-month, five-continent recording spree, is a funky, folkloric, and futuristic mélange of sampled indigenous instruments and electronica. "Braided Hair" teams the rap-country vocals of Arrested Development's Speech with the daring pop diva Neneh Cherry. The South African mbaqanga vocals of the Mahotella Queens provide the Afro-rave underpinnings for vocalist Ulali's poetic pleas for African unity. The tantric trances of the South Asian syncopated tabla drums pepper the synth-laden "When You Dream," which features R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and the Indian star Asha Bhosle. Boundaries of nationality, time, and musical genre meld into grooves for the head, hips, and heart that need no translation. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Product Description

1 Giant Leap is Jamie Catto from Faithless & musician/producer Duncan Bridgeman. The album is recordings they gathered while traveling around the world. They recorded a number of musicians, storytellers, authors, filmmakers, artists and thinkers from many different cultures. Artists included on the album are Michael Stipe, Asha Bosle, Dennis Hopper, Baaba Maal, The Mahotella Queens, Kurt Vonnegut, Horace Andy, Michael Franti & DJ Swamp. Housed in a slipcase. 2002.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The World Dreams in Music August 13, 2003

By Rebecca of Amazon HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. ~Anais Nin (1903-1977)

The first time I listened to this CD, I listened to "All Alone" obsessively. I became so intoxicated with a feeling of immense completeness as every sadness in my soul dissolved into pure love.

The world could have disappeared and I would have been standing in the middle of a field of crimson roses all blooming to the sound of Duncan Bridgeman singing: "If you stay or if you go." The friend who sent me the CD said to listen to the track before I went to bed and I've never experienced such a healing gift. In life, you often meet people who will give you gifts your soul needs and then at times friends can work together to heal the world.

When Jamie Catto met Duncan Bridgeman it was a random moment in time. Like most creative friendships they found they had so much in common. Once they started talking they realized they had similar beliefs about the state of modern music. Jamie was the singer and keyboardist in the UK band Faithless and Duncan Bridgeman had been mixing albums for big-name artists. Together they have created a CD I can hardly believe exists.

I had no idea the impact it would make on me. I also didn't realize you could fall madly "in love" with a CD. ;) Once "My Culture" takes off, you are going to understand the meaning of "primal high on a soul level."

"I'm what I feel, what I'm feeling is surreal
I'm a mass of spinning wheels
Always digging in my heels
Now I've got the faith to

Fall back again
Crawl from the warm waters
Don't ever forget
You're on your feet again
Your feet again" ~My Culture

This CD is a spiritual journey into a land where you can escape from ordinary consciousness. You will feel you connect instantly with the universal wisdom in the lyrics. There is a richness of culture in the freeing dance of philosophy and world music. Multicultural voices mingle with beautiful intellectual tangents. Visual images dance through your mind as the music creates a deep soothing soul vibration that radiates through you like the most comforting feeling you have ever experienced.

"The Way You Dream" is one of my favorite songs as it blends the mysterious voice of Indian star Asha Bhosle with the completely intoxicating voice of Michael Stipe.

This CD also features Dennis Hopper, Kurt Vonnegut, Robbie Williams, Tom Robbins, Senegal's Baaba Maal, Ram Dass, Gabrielle Roth, the South African Mahotella Queens, Neneh Cherry, New Zealand's Whiri Mako Black, Revetti Sakalar and Eddi Reader.

1 Giant Leap is a fusion of sound and word captured through travels in Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Bombay, New Delhi, Calcutta, Bangkok, South East Asia, Los Angeles, New York, India, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. This CD is the result of recordings from 25 countries.

Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman literally spent six months traveling across the globe with a mobile studio and crew. Together they recorded storytellers, shopkeepers, authors, artists, philosophers and even cabdrivers. Each song contains a mixture of sounds and lyrics from various parts of the globe.

The chants, ethereal cries and primal rhythms will at times send chills up your spine. When Michael Franti sings "We are alive with the spirit of our passion" you can't help wanting to live, and live for a long, long time so you can see all your dreams become a reality.

The entire CD really represents a unity humanity could strive for if they could find peaceful resolutions to the issues haunting us all. The themes of the album are death, confrontation, sex, money, blasphemy, faith, happiness, inspiration, time, masks and unity.

Healing, loving, intoxicatingly spiritual and poetic beyond words. Perhaps the most beautiful music I've ever heard. 1 Giant Leap shows our humanity, the wide diversity of cultures and the beauty of unity through music.

~The Rebecca Review

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The album of 2002? Quite possibly. April 14, 2002

By William Barber

Format:Audio CD

Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman are geniuses. Travelling the world with a laptop to record a wide range of musicians, scientist, authors and thinkers on is unusual to say the least. However, they've produced what may well be some of the most beautiful and haunting music ever heard. They describe it themselves on the back of the CD as "exploring the unity in the diversity" and that it is.
Spanning all genres and all the world, this album truly is a masterpiece that deserves a place in everyone's collection. Featuring international stars such as Robbie Williams and Michael Stipe to relative unknowns like Baaba Maal and Speech. None of these artists recorded together yet the songs are contructed so masterfully that you'd never know. The vocals of Speech and Neneh Cherry on 'Braided Hair' are particularly impressive as it sounds so much like they recorded with each other.
The wonderful fusion of different styles in exceptionally good, "Ma' Africa" mixes an African womens choir with modern dance to great effect.
'The Way You Dream' is one of the standout tracks, Michael Stipe's voice will haunt you and effect you more than you can imagine.
This album will leave you enchanted and you can't fail to fall in love with it. Likely to be labelled "World" music which may put some off but don't let it for this really is an outstanding work which will appeal to everyone and deserves huge recognition, let's hope they do it all over again.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Williams,Stipe,Faithless,etc Do World Music-Amazing! April 9, 2002

By Ian Creamer

Format:Audio CD

1 Giant Leap can best be described from the 2 lines on the rear cover when it says "We travelled around the world collaborating with the most happening musicians, authors, scientists and thinkers we could find to explore the unity in the diversity." Essentially the theme of the c.d. is totally admirable but it's the musical aspect that will linger most in the listeners memory. Ex-Faithless member Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman have compiled a world music meets modern western music and presented it in an exciting way like I've never really heard before. Amazingly this c.d. was almost entirely recorded on a laptop in various musicians homes and then was all put together in a recording studio. In this they have harnessed the latest modern technology and mixed it with musical values that have been heard around the globe for centuries. Rhythm is the main mover in this c.d. They have amalgamated various rhythmic and ethnic sounds from every continent across the globe-from South/North America to Asia, From Africa to Oceania and Australia-and yet it's all mixed together with real cutting edge sounds of modern dance music. Each of the tracks feature vocalists who have extremely different styles coming from vastly different cultures. They recorded the music completely separately and you'd imagine that this would give this c.d. a very disjointed feel to it-yet nothing can be further from the truth. The first 2 tracks are an example of this-Babba Maal the amazing Senegalese vocalist shares a track that has rhythms that have origins in India and Asia. Then this leads into track 2 which starts of with a Maori emphasis before we go into modern dance style of Faithless lead rapper Maxi Jazz. His voice intertwines with the poppier sounds of Robbie Williams to give us the amazing track "My Culture". It's been a long time since Robbie Williams has been involved with such a great track. It's beginning to get lots of airplay here and to me this is quite bizarre as it's not often you hear World music fused with modern dance beats on mainstream radio or even on M.T.V.

While this track is excellent it's not the main one off highlight. Track 3 is simply beautiful and lasts for 8 minutes. It features Asha Bhosle the Indian icon and subject of Cornershop's famous #1 hit "Brimful Of Asha"-her vocals lead into Maori Whiri Mako Black and then the unmistakable sound of Michael Stipe-rarely have I heard him sounding quite so stunning, so tender on the amazing chorus and verse section as all these sounds fuse in a moment of musical glory. Think of a really great R.E.M. song but it will have a definite Asian-African fused sound.Each of the 12 tracks are mixed together in much the same way. It sort of keeps the listener totally absorbed and lulls you into a dreamy soundscape, yet you're also kept on your toes as you have no idea from what culture or where each song will lead. Some of the mixes are truly daring-like on track 4 we have choirs from South Africa interchanging with Native American choirs. Some tracks have middle eastern sounds which drift into a more Celtic vibe. They also collaborated with other great vocalists who are all mentioned in the track listing.

This really is quite a startling album-no weak tracks in my opinion and quite a few very memorable ones. The inner sleeve recalls how a drummer's call in Senegal will be answered by voices in Delhi and then a call from New York will be answered in Ghana 'all mixed together with other rhythms creeping in-One Global Pulse!'-Just perfect!